y decent woman called
Peggy, I found her, to my surprise, possessed of a fine large bible. She
told me her husband, Carpenter John, can read, and that she means to
make him teach her. The fame of Aleck's literature has evidently reached
Jones's, and they are not afraid to tell me that they can read or wish
to learn to do so. This poor woman's health is miserable; I never saw a
more weakly sickly looking creature. She says she has been broken down
ever since the birth of her last child. I asked her how soon after her
confinement she went out into the field to work again. She answered very
quietly, but with a deep sigh: 'Three weeks, missis; de usual time.' As
I was going away, a man named Martin came up, and with great vehemence
besought me to give him a prayer-book. In the evening, he came down to
fetch it, and to show me that he can read. I was very much pleased to
see that they had taken my hint about nailing wooden slats across the
windows of their poor huts, to prevent the constant ingress of the
poultry. This in itself will produce an immense difference in the
cleanliness and comfort of their wretched abodes. In one of the huts I
found a broken looking-glass; it was the only piece of furniture of the
sort that I had yet seen among them. The woman who owned it was, I am
sorry to say, peculiarly untidy and dirty, and so were her children: so
that I felt rather inclined to scoff at the piece of civilized vanity,
which I should otherwise have greeted as a promising sign.

I drove home, late in the afternoon, through the sweet-smelling woods,
that are beginning to hum with the voice of thousands of insects. My troop
of volunteer workmen is increased to five; five lads working for my wages
after they have done their task work; and this evening, to my no small
amazement, Driver Bran came down to join them for an hour, after working
all day at Five Pound, which certainly shows zeal and energy.

Dear E----, I have been riding through the woods all the morning with
Jack, giving him directions about the clearings, which I have some faint
hope may be allowed to continue after my departure. I went on an exploring
expedition round some distant fields, and then home through the St.
Annie's woods. They have almost stripped the trees and thickets along the
swamp road since I first came here. I wonder what it is for: not fuel
surely, nor to make grass land of, or otherwise cultivate the swamp. I do
deplore these pitiless clearings;